Food

Mobile beer garden is making stops at 7 Boston neighborhood parks this summer

Roundhead Brewing and Fresh Food Generation are teaming up to offer food and drinks to seven Boston neighborhood parks. It's already started in Southie.

Roundhead Brewing and Fresh Food Generation are teaming up for Alianza Park Series, a mobile beer garden coming to Boston's neighborhood parks. Courtesy Roundhead Brewing

By Katelyn Umholtz

June 27, 2024

Roundhead Brewing is on the move this summer, hopping from Boston neighborhood park to the next in their new mobile beer truck alongside Fresh Food Generation.

The program is called the “Alianza” (which translates to alliance) Park Series, and Roundhead co-owner Craig Panzer said it’s a “first-of-its-kind” series licensed for seven City of Boston parks.

Sure, beer gardens aren’t new to Boston’s green spaces. So Roundhead and Fresh Food Generation food truck are bringing the concept closer to home.

“Beer gardens have been activated in downtown spots and have built audiences by City Hall [Plaza] or Rose Kennedy Greenway,” Panzer said. “But these are really community-based parks where neighbors come to enjoy their time.”

For example, they’ll park their beer garden at the Marcella Playground in a residential area of Roxbury, and soon after that, head over to Brighton Common.

The two local BIPOC-owned businesses were rewarded a 14-week contract from the city that allows them two-week stays at seven Boston parks. First up was South Boston’s A Street Park, which ramped up June 19 and will be in place through July 1.

Fresh Food Generation, a farm-to-plate Caribbean-American restaurant, food truck, and catering service out of Dorchester, will feature a new menu item specific to each neighborhood, CEO Cassandria Campbell said in a press release. On their menu in Southie, they featured items like jerk chicken wings, herbed salmon bites, and fried pesto potatoes.

Roundhead Brewing, Massachusetts’ first Latino-owned brewery in Hyde Park, will also have a changing menu of beers each week. One you’ll find on the menu now in Southie is Juntos IPA — which translates to “together” — a New England-style IPA that was Roundhead’s collaboration with Cerveceria del Callejon, a brewery out of Puerto Rico.

“Everything from the beer name to the mission behind it to bring Latin breweries together can then extend … to this park series, which is about bringing the community together across Boston neighborhoods,” Panzer said.

To encourage cross-neighborhood traveling, Roundhead is offering a passport program, giving guests stamps at each new park they visit. Those stamps turn into prizes at the brewery — one stamp gets you a free tasting, four stamps equates to a free glass, and seven stamps (all parks) means a free tasting, free pizza, and free glass.

The businesses are also sharing the space with musicians, artists, and local organizations who want to stop by and share their work.

Roundhead and Fresh Food Generation worked closely with neighborhood groups to work with any requests they might have while the beer garden is at their park. That means each park’s hours vary, but the days that the beer garden is there will stay the same, from Wednesday to Sunday.

Can’t make it to South Boston’s beer garden? Here’s the schedule for the remainder of the summer: